Cautious prepper saves his home from flood with an Aqua Dam

Randy Wagner was crazy when he drove from Texas to Louisiana to pick up a $8300 Aqua Dam, but after the horrible floods in Texas the investment proved invaluable.

AquaDams, the giant water-filled barriers that can be erected to protect homes and businesses from flooding, are in demand by emergency crews dealing with Tropical Storm Harvey.

The state of Texas has contracted with Gulf Coast AquaDams to construct 7 miles of cofferdam barriers along I-10 in Houston to open up the interstate for emergency vehicle transportation, said Larry Campisi, president of the Abbeville, La., company and a distant cousin of the Dallas restaurant Campisis.

The company is looking to deploy more portable dams on I-10 in Beaumont and in the Vinton-Lake Charles-Sulphur area of west Louisiana as Harvey makes its way east.

“We’ve been extremely busy. We’ve been working around the clock,” Campisi said. “We just finished protecting a nursing home in Abbeville.”

Citizens across the state of Texas are coping with one of the worst floods in recent history. Fortunately, an incredible number of people evacuated the flood plains and loss of property has been more prevalent than loss of life.

The unprecedented fallout from Hurricane Harvey is expected to continue as the flood waters rise. “In some ways, I think this event is going to far surpass what we saw in Tropical Storm Allison,” said J. Marshall Shepherd, director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia. “The steering currents that would normally lift it out of that region aren’t there,” he told the New York Times.

Shortly before the floods of 2016, a survivalist took a risky investment that paid off in full. A lot of people view preppers in a negative light given the way most media outlets portray them. All too often the focus is on paranoia of a looming apocalypse, but the prepper lifestyle is incredibly advantageous especially during a natural disaster. People thought Randy Wagner was crazy when he drove from Texas to Louisiana to pick up a $8300 Aqua Dam, but after the horrible floods in Texas the investment proved invaluable.

The 30″ tall tube can be filled with water to hold back flood water. According to Wagner, “I was the crazy guy. Everybody was kinda, y’know, goin’ by laughing at me. But today they’re really impressed with this.” When the floods came, water reached a depth of 27″ but never broke through his barrier. Once the cost of flood damage has been taken into account, $8300 seems a negligible price to pay to save your home.

Gulf Coast AquaDams contracted with the Texas Department of Transportation through the governor’s office to erect 7 miles of 3-foot tall, 7-foot wide water-filled tubing made of plastic and fabric along the highway to keep it from flooding and allow emergency vehicles to pass.

Campisi said he deployed 16 people to the area and he’s got 21 people working 12-hour shifts.

“We’re working around the clock with our teams to protect life and property,” he said.